With the rapid urbanization in China, High-rise Housing Estates (HHEs) were widely accepted as a solution to urban housing shortage. This study focuses on an inquiry into the liveability issues of high-rise housing through investigating residentsí evaluation on residential environment of four HHEs in inner city of Tianjin, China.

Abstract

In the past ten years, China`s urban population has increased by 235 million. By the end of 2011, the urbanization rate has surpassed 50% for the first time. In the context of rapid urbanization, High-rise Housing Estates (HHEs) were widely accepted as a `sustainable` and `effective` solution to urban housing shortage by the policy-makers, developers, planners and designers in China. However, the liveablity of high-rise housing has long been under debate with critics claiming liveability problems to be one of the reasons behind the decline of HHEs in developed countries in mid-1970s. Further, during the process of high-rise housing development, residents - opinions and experiences on high-rise living have not been fully understood and considered due to the lack of public participation. This study focuses on an inquiry into the liveability issues of high-rise housing through investigating residents - evaluation on liveability factors of the existing HHEs in the urban center of a Chinese city. It starts by constructing a resident-centered liveability evaluation model that includes the total Residential Environment of HHEs and its four dimensions: Dwelling Unit, Dwelling Building, Housing Estate and Urban Neighbourhood. Based on a residents questionnaire survey in four HHEs located in the inner city of Tianjin, China, the study then analyzed the important questions of the liveability of the existing HHEs. The study aims to examine the residents - perceptions on high-rise residential environment as a whole, while also revealing the residents - experiences in the four spatial levels respectively. It was found that,as the spatial level enlarges from the level of Dwelling Unit to Urban Neighbourhood, the residents, evaluation indicated decreasing satisfaction, which implied that residents are more satisfied with their immediate living environment than the surrounding environment at large. The factors, such as the objective features of residential environment and the demo-graphical characteristics of residents, are examined to explore the difference of satisfactions.